


Just Us Again

by cuddlesome



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker
Genre: Cheesy, Enemy Lovers, F/M, Kissing, PWP without Porn, Rey Needs A Hug, Size Difference, Sloppy Makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 11:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18498511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddlesome/pseuds/cuddlesome
Summary: “You’re afraid of the dark side. You’re afraid I’ll seduce you. You’re afraid you’ll like it.” His eyes are so pretty even when they’re glittering darkly in mockery of her. “Oh, Rey.”Rey and Kylo re-encounter each other.





	Just Us Again

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while waiting for The Phantom Menace 20th Anniversary Celebration panel to start amidst pounding music and on the plane home from Star Wars Celebration while sitting next to two 501st people, so if it seems a little all over the place that would be why. I still really like how it turned out, though. :3c

It’s night when he comes to her. Of course it is.

 

In the interest of keeping everyone in the Resistance safe and, more personally, her own privacy, she’d imposed a self-exile to the desert for lightsaber practice.

 

This planet is far rockier than Jakku, but she can't help but be reminded of it with miles of sand. It’s not nostalgia, not really—would she ever feel nostalgic for the source of so much suffering? She hopes not—but a sort of strange homeyness. For the first time in a while she thinks she knows what she's doing. The crunch and shift of sand is consistent in a way few things in her life are.

 

That same homey feeling, so to speak, makes the shock of seeing Kylo Ren all the worse.

 

“You,” she says, breaking out of her lightsaber forms to point her weapon at him.

 

The permanent frown affixed to his face quirks slightly. “You were expecting someone else?”

 

She thinks it’s their bond at first, but then it registers that she can still hear the whisper of the wind on the sand, the subtle cries of this planet’s nightlife.

 

He’s here. Really here. In the flesh.

 

Her mind spins as she struggles to understand how he found them. How no one detected his ship on their scanners. Did he have stormtroopers with him? Is he here to create a distraction for her? What if—?

 

“It doesn't matter,” he cuts into her thoughts, “It’s just us again.”

 

He just loves to lord his size over her, taking subtle steps to get in her personal space. Closer, closer, until she has to tilt her head back or else risk having her field of vision dominated by his wide chest.

 

Her saber hums in tandem with the pain rumbling in her chest at the idea of hurting Ben again, despite everything. Slow, reluctant, almost against her will, she lowers her saber, shuts it off, and clips it to her belt.

 

There’s light in his eyes. A mistaken victory.

 

He reaches out to her, seeking.

 

His hand represents something bloody and dirty to her where it hadn't before. With the black gloves encasing his fingers she can almost pretend it’s a heavy, meaty claw-tipped paw just waiting to tear into her.

 

“Don’t,” Rey hisses, scrambling backwards.

 

If she goes any further she’ll run into hard rock. She doesn’t care. The jagged edges tearing at her would be preferable to his touch.

 

The last time they touched, the Force had shown the two of them unifying, creating, the cure for the loneliness that plagued them both.

 

The Force had lied.

 

He’s still standing there with his hand held out like an idiot.

 

“Don't touch me,” she says, “ever again.”

 

Kylo’s hand curls into a fist and he pulls it back to his side with a jerk. A muscle beneath his eye spasms.

 

“When will you admit to your true feelings?” His tongue slips out to lacquer his plump lips and her traitorous eyes follow its path.

 

“I know what I feel, monster,” Rey snarls, repeating the sentiment for what feels like the hundredth time. “I don’t want to bring planets to heel, I don’t want to command armies, I don’t want the galaxy.”

 

She wants to love and be loved.

 

Rey can feel him against her mind. His presence in the Force feels galaxies away from when he’d first touched her thoughts. Instead of ripping down her walls, he brushes up against them, soft and silky and warm as a lothcat’s side.

 

Stupidly, so stupidly, she lets one of the blast doors in her defenses open just a crack. Kylo seizes upon it at once.

 

“You’re afraid of the dark side. You’re afraid I’ll seduce you. You’re afraid you’ll like it.” His eyes are so pretty even when they’re glittering darkly in mockery of her. “Oh, Rey.”

 

He shakes his head and resembles his uncle for a moment, oozing condescension and disapproval.

 

She brings her hand up to hit him with eagerness that had belied her with her saber.

 

Her hand comes to a dead halt. It hovers over his unscarred cheek. He eyes it.

 

Never again, Rey chants mentally, never, never—

 

He turns and kisses her palm, generous nose bumping up against the base of her fingers. He peers at her through his lashes. He swallows. Rey does likewise.

 

He nuzzles at her hand and flips it over, allowing him to brush his mouth over her knuckles.

 

Her silence seems to encourage him more than anything.

 

A tug at the binding on her arm results in her pulling the first part free herself to discourage him from ripping it. He continues to unwrap the binding as he kisses his way up her arm, lavishing attention on freckles and scars and soft swaths of vellus hair alike.

 

He rips aside the band of leather that she had wrapped around her bicep. The scar, faded to an inoffensive shade, is subjected to lingering kisses and a small suckle between his teeth. He’s moved on to her neck before she can question it. Rey lifts her chin and allows him to kiss and nip at the tenderest spots.

 

Unbidden, her arms have raised and hemmed him in, hugging the enemy warlord to her considerably smaller body. The span of his back is too broad for her to reach around. She doesn’t have much time to think about how stupid huge he is, because in the next moment he’s kissing her full on the lips.

 

The Resistance camp less than a mile away, the chilling desert night air, the stars… all of these things disappear in favor of him being her whole world and beyond.

 

Rose had lent her romantic holobooks to pass time on the _Falcon_. Ones where everyone’s mouth had a distinct, sweet, spicy taste and everything aligned perfectly.

 

Kissing Kylo Ren is nothing like that. It’s simultaneously one of the most wonderful and awful things she’s ever experienced.

 

Rey learns the sharp juts and angles of Kylo’s teeth right alongside the wet muscle of tongue. He doesn't taste like spices or honey or darkness or anything, really. Mostly he tastes like nothing.

 

Everything is spittier and slicker than the holos had promised. Rey finds she’s happy with that surprise.

 

That happiness is curbed somewhat by the fact that her lips are chapped. They seem all the worse to her when pressed up against the plump velvet of his. Then again, Kylo’s nose, no, more honestly, his entire face, is too long.

 

Neither of them are beautiful, but Rey feels more beautiful than ever before, kissing him.

 

Her ample forehead connects with a hard smack against his scarred brow and she separates their mouths to apologize. She changes her mind and leans forward to kiss him again before she can get the first syllable out.

 

Dirty scavenger hands knot in his equally dirty hair. It’s almost insulting how he hasn't taken better care of himself lately. The supreme leader has to have all the resources in the world to practice basic self-care. Why hadn't he kept up that feathery consistency he’d unveiled to her when he first removed his helmet for her? Then again, the grimy unkempt look is charming in its own way.

 

It makes him seem less like a crown prince, a wrathful sorcerer, the last of the Skywalker line, and more like a man. Men are vulnerable. Men can die.

 

He yanks off his gloves and frames her face in his bigger, paler, softer hands, squishing her cheeks more than a little.

 

Rey knows she must not look very dignified with her face smooshed in such a way, but regardless, this is the first time in a while she’s had time to breathe.

 

So she takes the opportunity and says what she’s been thinking since the start of this encounter: “I never thought I’d see you again. Not like this.”

 

The squished framing of her cheeks eases as he pushes a strand of hair out of her face. “Would you prefer it if we fought?”

 

“It would be easier to understand.” Rey finds herself blinking back the start of tears. “Everything was easier when I hated you.”

 

She should have known when she got wrapped up in Skywalker family affairs that everything would get complicated.

 

Kylo tilts his head, brushing the tips of their noses together. “What do you feel for me now?”

 

“You know.” Rey busies herself with playing with the heavy hood draped between his shoulder blades and looks over his shoulder at the starry sky.

 

He pecks her cheek and whispers in her ear, “I do, but I want to hear you say it.”

 

So she tells him and they kiss again. War can wait, if only for a little while. The tangle of emotions and history between them doesn’t seem so complicated, now, alone in the wide expanse of desert with nothing to do but learn the contours of each others’ mouths and hearts.


End file.
